Snow Melting in Colorado Springs
By Alex Goff
April 13, 2005 – The good news is that the snow is melting in Colorado Springs and travel delays getting in to the Denver airport are expected to be pretty much back to normal.
Now we wonder who will be leaving happy instead of arriving grumpy. And in Colorado Springs we will see the two most compelling groups of the men's DI college playoffs.
In Pool D, Ohio State faces St. Mary's in an intriguing clash of styles, while Air Force faces Navy.
Air Force has been dominant since their September loss to Oklahoma, and bring with them that whole altitude thing. Navy, despite some excellent results of late, struggled with Penn State and, while physical, are vulnerable.
"We’re feeling pretty good going into this," said Air Force coach Dan Marine. "We’ve been consistently improving throughout the spring and feel like we're starting to put things together. The guys are starting to understand what their potential is."
Air Force is enormously athletic. They have added a couple of players from the football team, and are fit and healthy. They follow a relatively simple game plan that relies on the players' physical and mental abilities.
"They are bright and athletic, and have good fitness and speed, so we play to our strengths," Marine said.
The opener against Navy, however, promises to be a huge physical contest. Air Force looks to come out of that one the victors, but at what cost?
The other game is a study in contrasts. Front-rowers Kevin Peterson and Conor Malloy lead a tough, hard-hitting Ohio State pack that is well coached and dedicated. St. Mary's is also well-coached, and relies on some speedy back work and a youthful exuberance. St. Mary's has had an excellent season so far, and next year should be even better. This year, though, they look to falter against Ohio State.
That sets up a massive clash between OSU and USAFA on Sunday. Air Force is exceptionally deep and is loaded with speed. They are favored to make the semis.
In Pool C, Penn State faces BYU, while Clemson takes on Army. Clemson has some strong players and some good athletes, but Army's physicality and power will see them through. And what of BYU and Penn State? BYU won their pool in the Pacific Coast but were pushed very hard.
"It's fair to say University of Washington is a sweet 16 caliber team," said BYU head coach Jared Aikenhead of the team BYU just barely beat to make it through. "I think it's a shame they're not here."
However, enough of that. BYU knows they dodged a bullet and need to improve to move on.
"We’re a fairly delicate team mentally, and I think we do better rebounding from tough games like this," said Aikenhead. "We hope to have a couple of our starters back and they will make this a different-looking squad. Maybe we'll catch some people off guard. We haven't played very well in a few of our recent games, and we know we need to do better."
Penn State, having beaten Navy to win the Mid-Atlantic, is on a roll and their forwards have shown they could be a problem for BYU. We think this is a close one, but we'll go with Penn State in the first round, and Army to win both Saturday and Sunday.
